GAITHERSBURG, Md. - With a little over 60 days left until Election Day, campaigns ramp up as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan tries to maintain his seat against challenger Ben Jealous.

Hogan, a popular incumbent, went unchallenged in the June 26 primary.

"Our latest polls have us up 20 points in Montgomery County which has never happened before and we're pleased that at this point in the election with like 60 days to go, that' we've got a 76 percent approval and two thirds of Democrats say they're going for us," said Governor Hogan at the Labor Day parade in Gaithersburg.

Governor Hogan is currently one of the most popular governors in the country. Even as a Republican in a Democratic state, many polls are putting him ahead in this race by double-digit margins.

Hogan says he knows that Democratic challenger in this race ben Jealous has an advantage -- with Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in the state. But Jealous says he's not taking anything for granted.

"We will win the same way we won in 2010, we are going to turn out more than one million voters across the state, we showed them that we could do that in the primaries when voting was up on our side by 26 percent. We do that again, and we win," says Jealous.

The Jealous campaign is counting on the high voter turnout of a "blue wave" in November. Travis Tazelaar, Jealous' campaign manager, wrote in a memo to supporters that the wave of Democratic voters in Maryland will be "large enough that not even the millions of dollars in negative advertising from Larry Hogan will be enough to stave off a Ben Jealous victory."

Mileah Kromer, director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center at Goucher College, questioned whether the "blue wave" will be a self-sustaining force in Maryland.

"Will the blue wave come organically to Maryland or does it need campaign advertisements, thus campaign funds, to fully realize it?" she said.